The Blues: A Very Short Introduction

Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture. It is not an easy thing to pin down. As Howlin' Wolf once described it, "When you ain't got no money and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food, you've damn sure got the blues." It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches", using a five-note "blues scale". Wald sees blues less as a style than as a broad musical tradition within a constantly evolving pop culture.

Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm and Blues

In 1948, the Orioles, a Baltimore-based vocal group, recorded "It's Too Soon to Know". Combining the sound of Tin Pan Alley with gospel and blues sensibilities, the Orioles saw their first hit reach #13 on the pop charts, thus introducing the nation to vocal rhythm & blues and paving the way for the most successful groups of the 1950s. In the first scholarly treatment of this influential musical genre, Stuart Goosman chronicles the Orioles' story and that of myriad other black vocal groups in the postwar period.

Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion

Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.

The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire

Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane.

Exploring American Folk Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States

Exploring American Folk Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States reflects the fascinating diversity of regional and grassroots music in the United States. The book covers the diverse strains of American folk music - Latin, Native American, African, French-Canadian, British, and Cajun - and offers a chronology of the development of folk music in the United States. A chapter includes detailed information about the roots of hip hop.

Robert Franks says:"Outstanding Musical Journey!!!!"

Publisher's Summary

Rhythm & blues emerged from the African American community in the late 1940s to become the driving force in American popular music over the next half-century. Although sometimes called "doo-wop", "soul", "funk", "urban contemporary", or "hip-hop", R&B is actually an umbrella category that includes all of these styles and genres. It is in fact a modern-day incarnation of a musical tradition that stretches back to 19th-century America, and even further to African beginnings.

The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 traces the development of R&B from 1950 to 1999 by closely analyzing the top 25 songs of each decade. The music of artists as wide-ranging as Louis Jordan; John Lee Hooker; Ray Charles; James Brown; Earth, Wind & Fire; Michael Jackson; Public Enemy; Mariah Carey; and Usher takes center stage as the author illustrates how R&B has not only retained its traditional core style, but has also experienced a "re-Africanization" over time.

By investigating musical elements of form, style, and content in R&B - and offering numerous musical examples - the book shows the connection between R&B and other forms of American popular and religious music, such as spirituals, ragtime, blues, jazz, country, gospel, and rock 'n' roll. With this evidence in hand, the author hypothesizes the existence of an even larger musical "super-genre" which he labels "The New Blue Music".

Richard J. Ripani is a faculty member at Hume-Fogg Academic High School in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also a professional musician and songwriter in Nashville, performing with artists such as Ronnie Milsap, Ronnie McDowell, the Kentucky Headhunters, and Lee Greenwood. He has worked on numerous national television programs and earned gold and platinum records.

What would have made The New Blue Music: Changes in Rhythm & Blues, 1950-1999 better?

This work is very much like an academic paper and the average listener will probably not enjoy listening, especially if you are not familiar with notes, chords, tempo and other music theory concepts. If you're looking for a technical and statistical analysis of the topic, then this might be useful to you. If you're looking for a narrative that examines the historical, social and cultural influences on development of R&B, you will be disappointed and bored.

What didn’t you like about Kenneth Lee’s performance?

The dry and repetitive narration is likely due in large part to the material, but it is dry and repetitive nonetheless. The narrator mispronounces the names of several of the more contemporary music groups.

Most books about Rhythm and Blues, Soul, and black popular music seem to follow a similar narrative, and are written under the guise of a socio-cultural analysis, with reference to politics, historical events, etc.

This book's key selling point is that it follows an almost entirely musicological analysis, taking apart different songs to discover changing trends in rhythm, melody, tempo, harmony, etc. Almost scientific in it's depth.

I have to knock off a star for 2 reasons. Firstly, the analysis for each decade is done in regards to the 25 top hits of the the decade (which I don't believe is even half the amount that should be covered to gain a true understanding of these topics), but mainly, as an audio book, it's hard to understand some of the lists being read out in terms of the numbers and statistics being presented to you. I actually don't seem to recall a list of 25 songs for each decade being read out loud, I assume it's an appendix in the book form, which is a major flaw.

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